Everyday Savings: Have a Plan

The most important way we save money each week is through planning before hitting the grocery store. Without this I would simply wander through the store, pick a few things that look like we would use them for dinner, spend way more than I need to and then go back again several more times during the week because of all the things I forgot It'd be crazy! And expensive.

Instead I follow this careful planning process.

On Sunday afternoon I go through our local paper for coupons, cutting out the ones that I think I may possibly use. Even if it's something I might buy but don't normally buy, I keep it ... if I find the item on a really good sale I WILL buy it and make it work in a upcoming meal.

Next I look over the sales list on commissaries.com. Since we are military we shop at the commissary. Instead of having weekly ads, they run two-week sales and post all sales items, the price and percentage off on that Web site. Largely based on that list and any coupons I have that match up to make things even cheaper, I decide what we will eat the upcoming week. For example, this week Zatarains rice is on sale as is Hillshire smoked sausage. Since I had a coupon for both I found a recipe for jambalaya.

I don't plan lunches (Luke takes a sandwich to work and I eat some fruit, hummus and wheat thins and maybe cheese each day) or breakfast (I eat yogurt every day and Luke sometimes eats cereal which I stock up on when it's on sale) so I only have to worry about dinner.

If what Im cooking with isn't based on that list it is based off coupons or what is in my pantry or freezer. Another example: blocks of cheese were on sale a few weeks ago, plus I had some great coupons. I bought about 10 or 12 blocks and put them in the freezer so we are well set in that area. I also had a coupon for hormel pepperonis ... and thus we are eating homemade calzones! Delicious. Last week I had $32 in coupons. That's $32 more I would've spent whether that day or another day on this we need for our home and meals.

Now bring on the list. I could be far more organized about this step, putting things into narrow categories. Instead I break it down into "dry," "meat," "dairy," and "veggies." The problem with this method is that it lumps an incredibly large number of things in "dry" in no particular order so they are easy to overlook. But let's not dwell on that, OK?

My list consists of things we need for the week (including cleaning supplies and hygiene products) and things that are on a great sale but we will use in a future week. I've learned recently the dangers of stocking up TOO much, but there are some things I know we use regularly enough to buy multiples of when on discount. Examples: cereal, black beans and cheese.

In the store itself I start at the one end and go to the other, using a pen to cross things off my list (so I don't forget anything).

Towards the end, before I hit the checkout, I go through my coupons to make sure I have the ones I plan to use separated out and ready to give to the checker.

The art of the coupon is a story for another post, but let me just say here as far as in the store is concerned -- Know Thy Checker. I don't care if it's the next one available -- let someone else deal with the Crazy Mean Coupon Checkers. Pick one that looks nice, young and like they don't care and regardless always hand them the coupons first. This will save you the trouble of dealing with someone who insists on going back through your groceries to find the 6 yogurts required for the $1 off 6 coupon. It is absolutely beyond me why some of these checkers care SO MUCH about your coupons. The coupon means the manufacturer is giving money back to the store for giving me a discount ... meaning there's no skin off the store's nose for giving me money off. And I KNOW they saw a bunch of yogurts go by because they JUST SCANNED THEM ... what gives?!

But like I said -- a discussions for later. And believe me, I will discuss it. You can count on it.

Training Update

We've had some (off and on) beautiful weather, or just beautiful enough to allow me to run outside with Dave on an almost daily basis. I've been working up my mileage and am up to 5.5 and totally feeling like I can do more. Considering that it wasn't that low ago that I wasn't sure I could even WALK after a two mile run, this is pretty great.

Today I did a brick, biking 5.5 miles and then running just under four immediately after. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. This is fortunate as in the race I have to ride 14 and then four. Scary.

... did I mention that I am absolutely exhausted now? So much so that I can't even form the words to write about how I put together my grocery list. I guess I'll do that tomorrow.

Birthday Planning Aholics

Dave's birthday party is one week from today. Against the advice of the lovely Alisha (who thinks I should hold everyone is suspense regarding our plans and general craftiness surrounding the day), here is the run down of all the little things we are doing/making for the party. ... so you can see just how crazy this has gotten:

First, this is the happy birthday sign Alisha and I made.

We also made a sign for his high chair yesterday, but it's in the car and Luke took the car so I can't take a photo of it.

Here is the super cool party hat, modeled by a very wiggly David. I need to add some elastic to keep it on his head.

Next, I made this bib for when he eats cake.

We've also been working on the food list ... Alisha will be making him a gorgeous cake, so that's taken care of. The rest of the food ...

-- Chocolate covered bananas!

-- Veggie tray/ dip

-- Meat and cheese tray (made by me because buying one is waaaaaay pricey, unlike the veggie tray which Ill be buying from Costc0)

-- Punch

-- Monkey mochas (made by me ... basically a coconut/chocolate latte)

-- Some other sort of snacky/salty thing. Chex mix? Pretzels? Unclear.

-- Paper products from the dollar store

Now I know you are asking "Ms. Budget lady -- what about your budget???" ... well, we DO have a budget for the party. So far I am under it, and the above food should be around $30. Our budget for the shindig is $100 (you only turn 1 once!).

So, stay tuned (next Saturday!) for the party details and photos and ... fun. All sorts of fun.

Frugal Fail: the dinner version

In the land of envelope living where there's a set budget each week for eating out, we try to stretch our little dollars in every way possible. We LOVE eating out and so it's really important to make sure we get to do it as much as possible.

To do this we frequent Restaurant.com and their monthly 80 percent off sales. We are able to buy $25 off coupons for local restaurants for $2. Every now and then I buy 10 or 12 of these for different places (and always via ebates.com for money back) -- some we've tried and some we've not -- and put them in the car. When we're out and feel like going to dinner, we have them on hand.

Today was one of those days.

We decided to try a new restaurant in Tacoma for which we bought a certificate several months ago -- El Guadalajara. Sounded nice enough and with a minimum purchase requirement of $35 (which I doubted we would exceed) and a $25 certificate we would have ourselves a cheap and delicious meal.

We wandered around in the car for a while burning gas -- but no worries! We were in for a cheap meal. We finally found the place, parked, got a (very excited and hungry) Dave out of the car and walked up ....

And it was closed. Not just closed but empty and completely and totally gone.

Sigh.

So we put a (very unhappy and hungry) Dave back in the car and drove to another certificate location -- Joseppis. It was delicious, but it was more expensive (it has a $50 minimum instead of $35).

And so here is some frugal math for you to determine whether or not we broke even:

Buying certificate for cheap meal: +1

Driving around looking for the place: -1

Finding place closed and wasting money on certificate: -1

Eating delicious italian food instead: +1

Spending more money than planned: -1

Total: -1 = frugal fail.

Meh.

(meanwhile I'm trying to contact the web site and get my money back)

Everyday Savings: The Electric Bill Challenge

I have a terrible habit: I hate turning off lights.

It isn't that I like having the lights on, either -- it's that I don't like going to the trouble of hitting the switch. I'm just that lazy.

Laziness, at least in this circumstance, costs money.

And so my personal challenge for the month of April is dropping our electric bill drastically. I chose to wait until this month so that I would have a full month of drying cloth diapers reflected before I worked to lower things. And wow did that make a difference ... our dryer/washer (apartment owned) is not energy efficient. It just SUCKS MONEY.

Unfortunately stupid power company did not get my comparison memo and they have decided to raise the rates this month. So to do this for you I'm going to have to do MATH. ... MATH! for you. That's how much I love you.

Since we can't avoid using our dryer every other day for diapers (since that in itself is cost cutting), I'm going to have to find other ways to do this. Examples:

-- Turning off our surge protectors (and everything plugged into them) at night. We don't need our modem and wireless on while we're sleeping, let's be honest.

-- Unplugging our cell phone chargers during the day ... no reason to suck power when they aren't charging anything

-- Turning off the computer when not in use

-- Turning off lights when we leave the house or a room. We live in a small apartment so I don't bother turning them off each time I go out of the room ... and when I'm about to go out the door with my hands full of David and three million other things and I notice that I left I light on ... it stays on. We are going to change that.

-- Running the dishwasher less. I frequently run it just to clean bottles and nothing else. There's no reason I can't take five minutes to wash them by hand.

-- Washing clothes less. I typically do loads of clothing laundry, wearing the same shirts and jeans over and over again just because those are the ones I like best. It's not like I don't have any others. I've decided to abide by a clothes/towels/sheets cleaning schedule with the hopes that it will cut down on the number of partial loads (and thus loads total) I do each week.

We'll let you know how it goes.

The Take

We returned from Ohio Tuesday mid-day ... and I say mid-day meaning mid-the-longest-day-ever.

That trip is just BRUTAL. To start with, his parents live a solid 1.5 hours from the airport. Add that to gaining three hours on the way home and the fact that our flight is always at o'dark thirty (in this instance -- 7:15 a.m.) and you get one very, very long day.

Now I'm catching back up on life.

One of the joys of coming home is getting several days of mail at once. I LOVE that! And Tuesday's take did not disappoint. Check out all the free stuff that came while I was gone! And note that this photo is missing a full sized bottle of panteen that was waiting at the leasing office when I took the picture. There are also several high valued coupons pictured here that resulted in free stuff from the grocery store ...

So far this is our stockpile of mailed freebies ... minus the things that I've used.

Yesterday I took my giant pile of free stuff and high value coupons to the commissary. My lofty goal was having $40 in coupons. I missed it, but not by a ton: the final tally was $31.43. Had I used all of my free stuff coupons I would've made it, but they didn't have the exact product I wanted so I decided to save it for later.

Here's the free stuff I ended up with yesterday ... not pictured is a bottle of vitamin water I drank on the way home:

You know how much I looooove saving money. Love, love, love, love, love.

Everyday Savings: Just Say "No."

It's a new month! It's a new day! It's a new blog post series!

(Lucky you).

(And fine, it's a mostly new month ... I've been out of town. Give me a break).

This month I'm going to focus now and then on how I've been accomplishing every day savings in my home. Hopefully this will give you some good ideas ... or make you think "wow you're a moron I can't believe you didn't think of that before now." Let's just not share that little tidbit with me when it happens, mmmk?

I started thinking about this series in early March, gathering ideas for this. As I took stock of all the little things I've started doing and learning the number one thing that has helped me save money is this: saying "no" to stuff I don't need.

I know, that's mind blowing.

But stick with me here. Think about how many times you are walking through the grocery store and buy that bag of cookies because you are hungry and it looks delicious and hey, it's only $2 and on sale.

Just say "no," folks. Just. Say. No.

Think about how many times you wandered into that mall store *cough* ann taylor *cough* and fingered through the clearence items ... and ended up walking out with that $15 super cute sweater that was $75 to start with! and on sale.

I hate to break it to you -- but even if you get it on sale, but you actually don't need it -- it's just money spent and money wasted on something unnecessary and, frequently, unbudgeted.

I'm not saying there is no room in life for the simple pleasures of a gallon of delicious ice cream (which made its way home from the commissary in my bag). But it should be planned. It's the impulsiveness that gets you in trouble. Just say "no."

Coming soon: actual practical tips with evidence ... or something of that nature.